Olympic Road Race

[frank9755]

Meet at Westerham at 7.30am for Costa Coffee. Leave at 8am and cycle along A25 to Dorking to check out the cycle shows at Denbies and the bottom of Box Hill
Then go here for about 10.30-11am to watch the loop.
http://goo.gl/maps/Z75V
This is just near the top of Pebblehill Road.
Would be great to see you.

Thanks Trickedem. I'm coming from north (Ealing) so expect I'd struggle to get through everything to make it down to Dorking. I'll prob just head for Richmond Park.
Have a good day out and hope you see something of the race!

 

[400bhp]

I'm sat outside box hill school-reasonably quiet at the moment but starting to fill up. The main entrance to box hill is chaos-massive queues,just 2 coppers at the entrance, no-one knows what's going on. You can't get through the main enyrance without a ticket-had to go down the main a road a bit and find another way on.

 

[defy-one]

I'm at corner of Brompton & Fulham roads. Reasonably quiet. Locked the bike 1/2 a mile away. Easy peasy

 

[Farky]

My view

View: http://youtu.be/aVnMVueUiqE

 

[Mark Grant]

I rode from Hampton Court to Box Hill along the return leg course, thought I may have been told 'No' by someone but it was fine, the marshalls along the route were not bothered.

Met Tim, Ian & User10571 at Denbies where we watched on the big screen for a bit then went to watch a couple of laps.

More pics HERE

 

[ceepeebee]

woke up this morning feeling like I should go so ended up riding to Richmond park for a quick view of them whizzing by, rode back through Wimbledon and was home by first Box Hill lap. Lots of people in RP saying "is that it?" after they'd gone through...

 

[Norm]

Is it my imagination or were the Italian team riding in Cycle Chat shirts?

 

[Trickedem]

Well what a great day that was. Early start for me (5.30am) but well worth it. Great company from User10571 and Ian as always. We went to the top of Pebblehill and when we got there just after 9am, we could have had a ringside seat, but we didn't fancy waiting for 2.5 hours so continued on down the course and went to Denbies. That white wine is NICE. (thanks Ian and User10571). We sat and watched a while, then went to watch the action on the dual carriageway nearby. Very impressive when the peleton comes through. After a couple more laps we then went back along the A25 and climbed Pebblehill again. Of course this time round it was impossible to see anything, so after taking in the atmosphere we headed home. The road back to Croydon from the top is fantastic, seems to be downhill all the way. After saying farewell to Ian at Orpington I carried on home via Swanley. Passing a pub, I realised they had the cycling on and I was just in time to see the rather disappointing finish!

 

[User10571]

There's little I can add to Trickedem's words, other than to say our day was enhanced by the company of Mark Grant, and a chance encounter with Tim and Mrs Hall - which is always a bonus.
We'll gloss over the incident where my ineptness caused a young woman cyclist to collide with my rear wheel and fall off. Luckily both she and her bike were unscathed, but it did earn me The Look (you know, the one which speaks a thousand words...)
Apologies for my indecisiveness as to how I was going to get home. I finally opted to return to the giant screen in Box Hill village and watch the finish there - which was wholly underwhelming.
Following which I hooked up with a couple of friends and we returned via the speedy-downhill-all-the-way Chipstead Valley/Croydon route, but not before we'd stopped to take refreshment and nutrition at the rather well appointed Blue Anchor in Tadworth.
Thanks Tim et al for a fine day out, some good moments were had - especially zipping round parts of the course before the race arrived - some wonderfully re-surfaced sections of road are currently to be found in the Box Hill area. Just shy of 80 un-shabby miles for the day.

 

[ceepeebee]

There's little I can add to Trickedem's words, other than to say our day was enhanced by the company of Mark Grant, and a chance encounter with Tim and Mrs Hall - which is always a bonus.
We'll gloss over the incident where my ineptness caused a young woman cyclist to collide with my rear wheel and fall off. Luckily both she and her bike were unscathed, but it did earn me The Look (you know, the one which speaks a thousand words...)
Apologies for my indecisiveness as to how I was going to get home. I finally opted to return to the giant screen in Box Hill village and watch the finish there - which was wholly underwhelming.
Following which I hooked up with a couple of friends and we returned via the speedy-downhill-all-the-way Chipstead Valley/Croydon route, but not before we'd stopped to take refreshment and nutrition at the rather well appointed Blue Anchor in Tadworth.
Thanks Tim et al for a fine day out, some good moments were had - especially zipping round parts of the course before the race arrived - some wonderfully re-surfaced sections of road are currently to be found in the Box Hill area. Just shy of 80 un-shabby miles for the day.

did you manage to repeat the marathon feat at all User10571? I managed a couple of miles from Rooks Lane down Priory Lane to the park before we got kicked off. What was most pleasant was a steward actually waved us onto the course

 

[AnythingButVanilla]

Brilliant pics, Mark!

Himself wanted to go down to Putney and see if we could catch it but since I'm a tiny person we went up to LMNH where I still failed to see anything on the big screen thanks to the tall people infront of me The atmosphere was good though and so was the beer even if it wasn't the result that we wanted. It was only when we were there that it dawned on me that the race went right past the boyfriend's old office on Putney High St and we could have asked his boss to let us in and get a perfect view. Bah!

 

[defy-one]

I caught them going down knightsbridge and onto Fulham Road.

 

[Mark Grant]

Went to Bushy Park today to watch the women come through in the rain.

 

[User10571]

did you manage to repeat the marathon feat at all User10571? .....

No.
Not really. Not at all, in fact.
It's not something I think I should discuss on a forum.
I'll talk with you about it the next time I see you.

EDIT: I was SERIOUSLY told off yesterday, and asked to leave immediately, a ticketed area for which I did not have a ticket. Despite the event being over.
Someone, in a uniform, was very, very unhappy because I was there.
Tant pis.